It's on the (Edge of Emotional
by weonlyliveoncesometimes
Summary: Oliver should have known Felicity Smoak was going to be trouble the second he saw her. It wouldn't have stopped them but he should have known.
I have no explanation for this other than I've wanted to write about Oliver as Mayor for a while having an uncontrollable reaction to Felicity and this is what came out of it. I don't even know if it's good but it was interesting to write.

So, please, enjoy this overly long story that probably could have been cut down by about 1500 words but isn't!

(Title is from Chet Fakers 'The Trouble with Us.' It's an awesome song. I really need to start coming up with my own titles.)

* * *

 _ **It's on the (Edge of Emotional)**_

It's been a long day.

Oliver recognizes this as he steps into his loft apartment and quietly shuts the door. His grey pants are rumpled, his tie loose, his jacket left at the office and his dress shirt heavy against his skin after wearing it too long. He can feel the exhaustion in the tightening of his skin and the heaviness of his eyes but Oliver knows he can't complain about it.

He'd signed up for this type of exhaustion when he decided to run for mayor of Starling City.

When he'd won, Oliver had steeled himself for the long days that stretched into the early hours of the next morning but still, the exhaustion seeping through him tells him he should think about taking a day off soon.

This type of exhaustion speaks to how many long days have turned into early mornings and the need for a day or two in front of the television.

But that's not going to happen now, Oliver knows, as he ambles towards the kitchen in the hopes of finding something to soothe his mind before he goes to bed. There are too many fires to put out as one of his councilors deals with the fall out of his wife divorcing him and his mistress doing a tell all.

A councilor he needed to push through legislation for redeveloping the Glades and now he's scrambling to find enough votes to get it through.

Oliver's been angry since he was elected mayor but the last time he was that furious, he'd walked away before he'd truly upset anyone.

The councilor hadn't been given that consideration. Even now, Oliver's ears are ringing with the temper he'd kept carefully leashed because it's an ugly thing to behold when on the loose.

The light over his stove is on as he steps into his dimly lit kitchen. Oliver pulls out his phone that had died an hour ago, attaching it to the kitchen charger, and knowing that it will blow up with emails, texts and calls the second it comes back to life.

He'll leave it in the kitchen tonight, Oliver decides, flicking down the silent switch and going to the fridge.

There's a bottle of red wine leftover from the other night, and Oliver pulls it out. He considers drinking straight from the bottle and then tells himself he's no longer a twenty-year-old reprobate.

He pulls a glass from the cabinet next to the fridge, pours a glass and then downs it quickly before filling it again.

The wine works quickly and Oliver feels the tension at the base of skull begin to fade as he leans against the counter and breathes deeply for just a moment. He concentrates on loosening his shoulders from the tense line they've been in since yesterday morning and calming his mind.

The wine and breathing help but it also brings a question to Oliver's mind that's been on the back burner since this scandal blew up.

What the hell is he going to do when it's him out on the edge of the parapet with the media in a frenzy to push him off it?

He's been squeaky clean since he decided to run as the youngest candidate for mayor. Even before that, he's worked hard to distance himself from the youthful indiscretions of his early twenties.

He's no longer the bed-hopping, drunken, playboy prince of Starling City and he's worked damn hard to keep it that way since the breakdown of his parent's marriage and his father's heart attack that left him with a company he didn't want and a family held together by only a thread.

The media had liked to revisit his past at the very beginning of his campaign. They brought up the swinging pendulum of his relationship with Laurel Lance, now a respected DA then a girl who desperately wanted him to be something he wasn't, and the cheating scandals that were associated with him. They mused on his antics with his best friend, Tommy Merlyn, and how one half of the two-man billionaire boys club could possibly be trusted to run the city when he'd never worked a day in his life. They'd gleefully argued about the fact that he'd never graduated from college and could Starling City really vote in someone so uneducated?

Oliver had bore the brunt of it in silence, knowing that it was going to take some media savvy to change their perceptions. Oliver had grown up in the spotlight and, as they crowed gleefully about him, he'd put what he'd learned about the media into a quiet strategy.

He and his campaign manager, now his chief administrative officer, John Diggle had devised a strategy fine-tuned by his family's public relations employee and it had worked.

The strategy had hinged on Oliver's reinvention as a respected businessman in the applied sciences division and security divisions of his families company, Queen's Consolidated. By dividing the company between himself and his mother's new husband, Walter Steele, they'd developed a reputation for fairness and innovation and it was these traits Starling City needed in a mayor.

They'd leaked his college transcripts as well, upending the medias speculation about his education by showing his quiet graduation and good grades from Cornell University that nobody had known about.

The final part of the strategy had been Oliver presenting himself as a single man with his full focus on Starling City and no distractions in the ways of women. Perception had to change and they'd all agreed that the best way for perception of him to change was for him to step back from the dating scene for a while.

It was an unusual strategy to go with but given Oliver's reputation as a playboy and the polls that suggested him having a love life would impact negatively on his chances, they'd agreed in this instance, bachelorhood would work for him rather than against him.

Oliver had been resolved to the decision before it was even suggested. He hadn't been bothered by it, either. There were more important things to think about than his love life during the election and the media had quieted down as they realized there was nothing to catch him at on his down time.

Besides, he was in his thirties and had decided before his run for mayor that a relationship would only serve to drain energy he needed for something else, and it was not worth the impact it would have on the rest of his life.

He'd hinted at that and he and his team had all watched in surprise as the media had taken his bachelorhood and turned him from a known lothario to the catch of Starling City where only a truly spectacular woman could turn his attention from his job.

A truly spectacular woman they'd known about and approved of before he even asked her out.

Oliver's phone vibrates violently as it comes back to life and he lifts his head, still pondering his question before deciding he needs to go to bed before he can think anymore about this.

In quick, economical moves, Oliver puts away the wine, turns off the stove light and heads upstairs to his bedroom where there's a pile of laundry waiting and only one more dry cleaned suit to wear before he's out of clean suits.

That's a problem for another day, though.

Oliver steps into his bedroom, yanking at his tie to take it off completely and stops short at the sight that greets him.

Felicity Smoak is curled around his pillow, the smooth expanse of her back covered by one of his running shirts and the blankets bunched around her hips. Her face is peaceful and her blond hair spills over his dark sheets, almost silvery in the moonlight shining in from the window that looks out over Starling City.

Her glasses are on the bedside table, her shoes beneath his laundry and her dress for tomorrow hanging on the full-length mirror Oliver has no use for and he feels the last of the tension truly dispel.

He should have expected her to be here when he got home. He should have known that the text he'd sent telling her he wouldn't see her tonight because of work, would have left her on high alert and he should have known Felicity would have stayed.

Unbidden, Oliver realizes he should have known Felicity Smoak was going to be trouble when he first met her.

Oliver shakes his head at the unfair thought and continues yanking off his tie, throwing it in the direction of his laundry as he begins to unbutton his shirt. He continues to stare at the woman in his bed and finds the tension begin to come back as he looks at her.

This was never supposed to happen.

Felicity Smoak was never a part of the plan and Oliver can only think about how this might blow up when they're found out. Because he knows they'll be found out and he knows it'll look bad because they've kept it a secret, one that is known by three people in total.

John Diggle's look of absolute disappointment is still seared in his brain and Oliver doesn't think he'll ever forget it.

Diggle's disappointment won't compare to the frenzy that will occur when they're found out and they're crucified because he and Felicity were never supposed to be anything but physical.

They'd met because of cyber security. The second Oliver had made office he'd demanded a new cyber security company be brought in to fix the holes in the mayor's office, holes that had helped his campaign when emails had been leaked from the server of his predecessor.

Oliver had been damned that was going to happen to him and he'd tasked Diggle with finding a new company, knowing his friend would find the best company possible and spin it to show Oliver's support of Starling City companies.

Diggle had settled on Overwatch Inc. and Oliver had signed off on it because Diggle had argued that although it was only a new start-up, the two employees who ran it ran circles around every other company that had pitched for the contract and Oliver was inclined to trust Diggle's judgment.

He hadn't given it much thought after that until he'd walked into his office and a blond in a tight grey dress and bright red stilettos had jumped up from his computer and greeted him with a mix of awkwardness and professionalism.

She'd introduced herself as Felicity Smoak, owner and CEO of Overwatch and she was only in his office to fix his firewalls. The more she had talked, the more Oliver had found himself appreciated everything about her from the things her shoes did to her legs, to the curves her dress clung to, and the intelligence that shined in brilliant blue eyes behind glasses.

Oliver had never shown any preference from blonds and he'd never really gone for the librarian type but the second he'd seen Felicity Smoak, the attraction was full blown, instantaneous and incendiary.

He'd gone into meltdown when she'd pushed her black glasses up the bridge of her nose and smiled nervously with a mouth painted the color of her shoes. Oliver had decided in that moment there was nothing he wanted more than Felicity Smoak.

Oliver likes to think he wouldn't have acted on anything if he hadn't found himself stepping closer to her and watching the attraction that was consuming him flare in her eyes as a blush spread slowly.

He likes to think that if he hadn't been so attracted to her and so fascinated by the combination of intelligence, awkwardness and guilelessness, Oliver would have resisted Felicity Smoak.

He likes to think that. He doesn't know if it's true. Felicity Smoak had slid under his skin in his office with bright red lips and quick fire words and Oliver had known he wasn't going to resist her.

Especially when it became clear her work at his office was going to be extensive and she was in and out nearly every day.

Felicity was around his office so much it drove him to distraction because she was close, he was attracted and he genuinely _liked_ her. She charmed him with her intelligence and lack of filter. She set his skin on fire with her heels, tight skirts and brightly colored lips. She consumed his thoughts so much that three days after meeting her for the first time, Oliver kissed her in the corner of his office.

They'd combusted.

It was a desperate clash of tongue and teeth, hands roaming desperately in search of skin and soft sounds, breathy sounds that drove him towards _more._

They'd pulled away to stare at each other in an almost surreal moment when Oliver had seen his own desperation mirrored in her heated eyes, before she'd pulled him back in by his tie and kissed him again.

It had taken a week before he'd shown up at her apartment late at night with a bottle of red with the pretext of thanking her. He'd woken up early the next morning in her bed with the knowledge that not only was Felicity Smoak under his skin; it was going to take longer than one night to get her out from underneath it.

They'd begun in earnest form that point on and Oliver had known it was the most dangerous game he'd ever played.

They alternated between her place and his, between him visiting her office and her late night visits to his. Oliver had taken a weekend off at his family cabin once; Felicity had only needed a little persuading to come.

They delighted in the physical, Oliver finding himself enamored with the enthusiasm Felicity displayed and unable to help himself from losing himself in her every single time. He always told himself that this wouldn't continue once she was out of from under his skin.

He'd found, though, that once they'd begun, she slid even deeper. She became so deeply embedded; he began counting down the hours to seeing her and warning bells had started ringing.

Then it had stretched longer than a month and she'd started to look at him in a different way when he saw her and he found himself looking back. They'd begun creeping towards the edge that plunged from something physical to something emotional and Oliver couldn't remember the last time he'd navigated something so near that edge.

If he ever had.

Their phone calls began to lengthen and Oliver found himself calling her to hear her talk; their text messages increased beyond organizing dates and into territory of asking what the other was doing right now, and Oliver found himself cooking for her to relax himself as she lounged at the kitchen bench and chattered away.

They no longer tore at each other's clothes the second the door was closed and they lazed together in the afterglow, discussing politics and sports, her business and his family. They traded secrets and desires and Oliver grew more fascinated by her with every second they spent together.

Their torrid affair had begun to spin wildly out of control and Oliver has no idea what to do about it and what it could mean for him and for her.

He'd known what his campaign was built on and he could only imagine what would happen if it came out that he had been secretly sleeping with a woman that was beautiful and younger, had been hired by his office and was far from what the media knew of his type.

Oliver had been called many things in his time and weathered the storm of exposé with the knowledge that it would grow old. Felicity had never experienced it though, and Oliver finds her never wants Felicity to have to.

He would take all the blame, he knows. He would weather this entire storm alone if he knew she wouldn't be touched by it.

Oliver thinks if he wasn't already taking the plunge over the emotional edge, he would know he was by the certainty he would weather this storm alone to protect Felicity.

Oliver knows that he's absolutely screwed in that moment because this has grown beyond the physical affair he'd thought would fizzle out. They're now on a playing field where Oliver isn't sure who would take the biggest emotional hit if this all fell apart.

"Oliver?"

Felicity sleepy voice startles him into finishing stripping when Oliver realizes he's been standing there, watching her sleep and thinking about how much trouble he's in with her.

"Hey. Go back to sleep." Oliver says quietly, tossing his pants and aside and Felicity squints at him.

"Can't. You're home."

She's adorable when she's half asleep and Oliver doesn't bother hiding the smile that steals across his face from her. Instead of completing his bedtime ritual or bother to find a shirt, Oliver steps over to the bed and slides onto it.

Felicity makes a satisfied noise when he slides up her body to gather her against him and Oliver closes his eyes as he holds her tightly.

What the hell is he going to do if the media finds out and tries to take her away from him?

"Did you fix your thing?" Felicity asks with a yawn and Oliver presses a kiss to her hair.

"No. It's going to take some time before it's truly fixed. I can do damage control, though." Oliver says and Felicity makes a noise that tells him she's really beginning to wake up now. "What about you? Is your plan for world domination fully in place with your new contract?" He asks and Felicity nods.

"Mmm. Malcolm Meryln may be a creep but his contract is generous and means I have a foot in the corporate sector." Felicity says and Oliver doesn't hide his agreement of her assessment of Malcolm Merlyn. "So, yay me!"

Oliver huffs with laugher and kisses her hair again because her enthusiasm is adorable and he can't help himself. She's successfully distracting him from the hell of his day and questions about what he's going to do about her.

Felicity twists in his arms a little, slipping down so they're more or less face-to-face and pressed chest to chest. There's a still trace of sleep in her eyes and her face is clean, and Oliver knows if the light was on, he could count the freckles on her nose. She presses a kiss to his chin and Oliver blows out a breath.

Felicity pulls back to fix him with a thoughtful look. "What's wrong? Seriously?"

Oliver looks at Felicity, at the woman he's come to know so thoroughly, he can already see the million questions she has swirling around in her head and something crystalizes for him in that moment.

He's not going to give her up.

They may be sitting on the edge of a scandal and this might not be the thing he imagined it would be when he first kissed her in his office, but Oliver's not going to give Felicity Smoak up.

"Do you want to go on a date with me?"

Any traces of sleep leave Felicity's eyes and she sits up so abruptly, that if he hadn't let go of her, he would have ended up with a sore arm. Felicity flicks on the bedside light and Oliver has to blink rapidly to adjust to the light flooding the room.

When he refocuses on Felicity, she's sliding her glasses on and staring at him incredulously.

"What?" She demands.

Oliver will wonder later how he would have handled this if he hadn't been up for what felt like an age and dealing with the fear of the media finding out about Felicity. He thinks he would have handled it a little better than just blurting out the question.

He, possibly, would have given some indication that his thoughts were heading in that direction.

"Do you want to go on a date with me? On Friday?" He repeats and Felicity's shaking her head before he's even finished.

Oliver hadn't known how much he wanted her to say yes until he sees her shaking her head. He's not entirely sure what he's asking but he knows it's changing the parameters of their involvement in a way that's a step toward the plunge into the emotional abyss that's developing between them.

He had thought that they were on the same page, though, and he finds himself on the edge of panic at Felicity's reaction.

What if he's wrong? What if he's the one with the feelings and the fear of being found out because he doesn't want this to end?

"Yes. I do. But I'm not going to. You're only asking me because of what's happened with Councilor what-his-name. I know how this works and…no." Felicity says emphatically and Oliver doesn't think when he replies.

"What? No, I'm not. If anything, I should be breaking this off with you. It'll be worse if everyone finds out about us in the middle of this."

Felicity's eyes flash and Oliver knows he's said the wrong thing as he sits up to scrub at his face and the tension at the base of his skull throbs. He knows it's going to take some talking to get himself out of this but Oliver isn't even sure what he's supposed to say.

If anything, Oliver didn't really think he would blurt it out like that, in any case.

Felicity looks incredulous and hurt. "What? We're breaking up?"

"What? No. That's not what I said." Oliver says and Felicity stares at him.

"That's exactly what you said. Could you not have waited until morning? Seriously, Oliver. Pick a suckier time to do this to me." Felicity's eyes are shimmering now and Oliver can't figure out how this conversation got so out of control.

Hadn't he just decided he wasn't going to let her go? Hadn't he just been thinking about how this thing has become far more than he'd thought and he didn't want it to be taken apart by the media? Or have Felicity taken apart by the media?

Oliver isn't sure what's just happened but he snaps into action when Felicity moves to get out of his bed.

"No, no. Don't go. Let me explain." Oliver grabs her wrist and Felicity pauses to glare at him. "Please, Felicity. Let me explain."

"You have thirty seconds." She tells him, her voice brittle and Oliver can see he's somehow managed to hurt her.

He lets go of her wrist and takes a deep breath, reminding himself that he used to ask out women all the time. That he was good at it. That they almost always said yes. But then he looks in Felicity's eyes and all he can think is he's out of practice because he screwed up.

He screwed up badly.

Oliver takes a deep breath and then plunges in to his explanation, one that's probably going to make it worse.

"If, somehow, someone found out that I've been sleeping with you for the last couple of months and that it was, had started," Oliver amends hastily at the flash of her eyes. "As something purely physical, they would tear us, tear _you_ apart. Because there's an assumption that I'll screw up at least once and I'll do it with a woman. If it came out now, it would mean public opinion would drop even further than it already has. I built my campaign on my focus on Starling City and my lack of partner worked in my favor because my past worked against that image."

Felicity knows all of this, Oliver thinks as he talks. She's too smart to not have pieced it together on her own and Oliver knows they've at least touched on the potential it has to be a disaster for her.

"So you asked me out so you had a plausible cover story if someone ever found out? How was anyone going to find out? Nobody knows, Oliver! Nobody, not even my friends know and, oh my god, it's not like they'd believe the mayor of Starling City wanted me so much he would risk his reputation for me." Felicity doesn't sound hysterical, she's sounds like she's thought about this and that would worry Oliver if he wasn't too busy shaking his head about how this had slipped from his grasp.

He's somehow made it worse, Oliver realizes at the defiant look she's giving him and that tells him he's only managed to upset Felicity even more.

"No. I asked you out because I can't finish this. I _want_ this. I want people to know about us. I want _you_ , Felicity."

Felicity's eyes widen at the vehemence in Oliver's tone and Oliver can't help but feel slightly insulted that she'd be so surprised by his words.

It occurs to him that it probably has something to do with the fact that he's never brought it up before and he'd lost control of this particular conversation, one where it was important for him to articulate his feelings, at the beginning.

Still, he hopes that he's making sense because he _knows_ this. This want he has for Felicity, one that had started out as purely physical and growing, is what's driving him now. The fear he has of the media finding out has more to do with her than him, though Oliver won't deny that he's afraid it will drive her away from him.

He wants Felicity in his life and Oliver knows the only way for that to happen is if she says yes to a date in public.

The rest they can figure out later.

"You have a funny way of showing it." Felicity mutters and Oliver breathes out a sigh of relief.

She's not attempting to leave the bed anymore and Oliver takes that as a win.

"Sorry. But I'm not letting you go. So, you might have to get used to my way of showing it." Oliver says with a small smile and Felicity huffs.

Oliver waits silently for her to speak, knowing that it's better to wait her out than try and keep talking. Felicity, he's learned, puts things together in her head better if you give her some time to do so.

He hopes she's putting the start of the conversation and the end of it together in a way that's favorable to him.

"You have to ask me again, Oliver."

He's surprised at Felicity's quiet words and then he snaps into action.

"Would you like to go to dinner with me, Felicity? On Friday?" He asks gently, reaching for her hand and gripping it tightly as she purses her lips.

"I don't know. Won't there be a problem with you going on a date with me?" Felicity's eyes are still a little too shaky for Oliver to take her question light heartedly and he shakes his head.

"No. Not if we start quietly and only confirm it when asked. We can work from that, okay? I just," Oliver blows out a breath. "This was going to happen sometime and I would rather face it together than be torn apart by something neither of us have control over."

Felicity nods and turns her hand over under his to interlock their fingers. Oliver looks down at their hands, noting that she's painted her nails a pale pink and wondering why he knew they'd been red the last time he saw her.

"Okay." She says softly.

"Okay?" Oliver asks, focusing on her face again.

"Okay, I'd like to go on a date with you on Friday." Felicity confirms, looking at him with certainty and Oliver feels the tension he hadn't notice spring up begin to fade. "I'd also really like to go to sleep now, too. With you, please."

Oliver won't ever tell Felicity about the way relief courses through him when she says yes or that he was scared that he'd destroyed his chance at this more for them by fumbling a conversation he really should have had when he wasn't sleep deprived.

Instead, he kisses her gently and Felicity squeezes his hand before she lets it go so Oliver can lean over and turn on the lamp.

They both take a moment to get comfortable, Felicity wriggling down on her pillow as Oliver reclaims his before pulling the blankets over them and wrapping his arm around her. Felicity's hand slides into his and he feels her breathe out slowly, her whole body relaxing against his.

Oliver closes his eyes and buries his face in her hair, his body finally relaxing as sleep beckons when he suddenly has a thought.

"You like Italian, right?"

He feels more than hears Felicity's laugh and he can't stop the smile that pulls at his mouth when he does.

"Yes, Oliver. I like Italian. Go to sleep. You have mayoral things to do later."

Oliver closes his eyes at Felicity's words and presses one last kiss to her hair.

He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do when they go on their date on Friday in the midst of this storm about the councilor. Oliver doesn't even know how they're supposed to handle this transition from the purely physical to something resembling a healthy relationship with mutual feelings.

They're going to plunge into this emotional abyss together, though, and Oliver thinks that they can hold onto each other as they figure it out.


End file.
